Monday, April 7, 2014

Could Legalizing Home Births in Liberia Decrease Infant and Maternal Mortality Rates?



Liberia has an infant mortality rate of 58 per 1,000 births and a maternal mortality rate of 770 per 100,000 live births.  While many efforts such as building more hospitals and maternity centers have been used to try and decrease these deaths there is still a large percentage of the population that doesn’t have access to adequate health care.
Many hospitals are a long trek down poor road conditions making them difficult to get to.  Add to this fact that 80% of Liberia’s population lives below the poverty line and you can see how much of the population has trouble accessing the necessary health care for pregnant women.  Since many of these women cannot get to or afford health care they have their births at home.  Unfortunately for these women assisting in a home birth is illegal so they have no other option than to do it alone.
Do you think having trained midwives who could visit and aid this under served population would decrease the infant and maternal mortality rates?

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